In part 1 the master for the Finn sword was created and prepped for molding. In this section I will cover the molding and casting process along with the finishing of the sword.

I first started by building a mold box out of laminated fiber board. The lamination is nice because nothing sticks to it. This took a while to figure out how to build due to all the angles but in the end saved material so proved to be worth it.

I put some insulation foam in the bottom to save on the amount of clay I needed, and then began by surrounding the bottom half of the blade in clay. I used medium harness sulphur free clay, although I would probably recommend soft clay instead because the medium stuff was still too hard. I ended up having to microwave it for a few seconds making it more malleable. Once the clay was nice and smooth, I put registration marks in by using a wire sculpting tool to create the wavy lines and the back of a paint brush for the dots.

I was then ready to pour. I used Mold Max 40 from Smooth-on.

Because the gem was the highest point on the sword, I built inserts to save on material. Keeping this in mind I poured the silicone up to the gem. After curing I rested the inserts on top and then poured the rest. This was time consuming but saved me a ton of material.

After curing I flipped it and did the same to the other side. I also added a pour spout out of clay so I could fill it with resin later. After the whole thing was cured I demolded it and I am pretty proud of how it turned out.

I applied mold release on both sides of the mold, then ratchet strapped the mold in between two boards and poured the resin. I used smooth cast 321 also from smooth-on.

There were a few imperfections that I had to fix, but nothing bondo and sanding couldn’t fix. I then primed and added a base coat of silver, then gloss white, followed by a pearl white. I also masked off the gem portion and painted it silver as a base and then metalic blue on top. Finally I wrapped the handle with paracord.

I’m really happy with how this project turned out comparing it to my last attempt shows how much I’ve grown as a prop maker. Check out a few more pictures on my portfolio, here.

Thank you everyone for your support and thanks for reading!

If you want to buy a fisnished version of this sword or a blank kit you can check out my Etsy here.

A while back I made the “Finn Sword” from Adventure Time. If you read my blog post about it, I wasn’t too happy with how it turned out. This was because I knew I could do a better job. So I did just that.

I started off by choosing a more rigid material than foam. In this case wood (mostly pine).

Once I had my material in mind I went back to the reference material to help design my template. I did this by taking lots of screenshots of the sword from Adventure Time.

The hardest part about this was getting the right measurements from these references. Cartoons are generally hand drawn so the sizes of things can be inconsistent. I came up with this template by making a lot of educated guesses based on proportions of Finn compared to the sword, and doing some research about swords in real life.

The two wooden boards that I had selected were glued together with opposing grains facing each other to prevent warping. I clamped them down with tons of clamps to insure that the bond would be as strong as possible.

After a day, the glue was fully set, so I took the board and cut it to the length of the blade. It was then run through my table saw to create the angles of the blade, along with cutting the point on my bandsaw.

I marked the point of the sword at one end of my newly formed blade and sanded it down to shape.

I took the leftover pieces from the original boards I glued together, and glued them side to side to build the “cross-gaurd” of the blade

I then transferred the design from the template to the wooden block. It was then cut out to the basic shape.

Using a router, it was then rounded down on the side of of the cross-guard.

The cross-guard and the blade were then drilled so that they could be fitted together with a dowel. I also created a smaller test piece to check the fit, and also as a reference while sanding down the cross-guard.

Then, I cut the blade portion of the cross-guard to shape with a coping saw, and sanded it the rest of the way. Along with increasing the size of the bevel because I wasn’t quite happy with the shape.

Taking a 2×4 and cutting it in half, I rounded the edges and put it on my lathe. This would become the grip and the pommel of the sword. I made a template of the hilt based off of my original template, and divided it up into sections. I transferred these sections onto the hilt I was turning. Using calipers I constantly checked to make sure the size of the hilt matched up with the template.

Both the hilt and cross-guard were drilled so they could be connected by dowels. All the components were taken and glued together to create one solid piece.

From there, wood filler was applied to some of the seams and then sanded down. It still wasn’t perfect, so some Bondo was added and sanded again. Bondo works a bit nicer with my workflow because it sands down smoother, and also dries much faster.

I had to find something for the gem, so I decided to go with a croquet ball. It worked out pretty well, but if I were to make this sword again, I might have tried to find something made out of a softer wood because sanding it was very tough due to its hardness. Because the ball was obviously round, cutting it while still getting two even halves would be difficult so I build a jig to help me out.

Using wood glue, the ball was glued to the cross guard of the sword.

I used another layer of Bondo to fix all the surfaces, and blended some of the edges on the ball.  That helped everything look like one piece. I started the priming and sanding process (with 320 and 400 grit) to smooth everything out after adding an I-hook to the pommel.

After going on a trip to Reynolds Advanced Materials, I had acquired some “free form air” which is a two part epoxy/putty that Smooth-On makes. Realizing the gem wasn’t looking quite right, I sculpted around it with the free form air, and made the gem look inset, which really made the sword come together.

I continued the priming and sanding process until all the defects were removed. The sword was painted glossy back, and sanded with 1000 and 1500 grit sandpaper. After this process was repeated many times, the sword was buffed, and prepped for casting.

More on that in Part 2 of this write up (coming soon)!

Thanks for reading!

I’m still learning how to cast and mold, so I wanted to make something relatively easy to mold. I ended up making a miniature “chibi” version of Rammus from the game League of Legends. I started by sculpting it out of sulfur free clay.

After I refined it to my liking, I made a simple one part mold using a plastic cup. I had a trial kit of oomoo 30 from a Reynolds Advanced Materials seminar I took, so I used that for my mold.

The mold was then filled with another trial kit I had of smooth-cast 300.

It took me a few tries to figure out how to get rid of some of the bubbles that kept forming under the hands and on the spikes in the resin. I ended up pouring the resin slower along with rotating the mold allowing the bubbles to escape.

The miniature was then hand painted with acrylic paint. I also screwed an eye-hook into its foot so I could make it into a keychain.

Most of the methods I used for this project I don’t have a ton of experience with. So working on this I learned a lot.

This is a shorter post than most but I’m considering putting these little guys on etsy so if I do I will put a link on this page. If you’re looking for more of my work like this take a look at my Instagram @beet_creations for lots of progress photos.

One thing that I find is extremely important to being productive is to stay organized. Now that I have a workshop I can use I needed somewhere to store my copious amount of tape. Necessity being the mother of invention I decided to just make something to suit my needs.

I came up with a design in my head that I realize now is very similar to a thread holder for sewing.

I took some scrap wood and a dowel I found in my workshop and marked it up to the sizes I wanted.

I cut the wood to the desired length with my chop saw.

Marking two of the thinner pieces of wood that would become the center of the holder. I took a forcer bit and and drilled a hole that would hold the dowels.

I laid out the wood as a mockup to see if the design would work.

It did, so I fastened everything together with wood screws.

I then glued all the dowels into place with wood glue.

Then it was finished. It was a quick simple project but it definitely will come in handy along with keeping me organized.

Thanks for reading!

I’ve talked about the reasoning behind making this helmet and sword in these two portfolio posts, here (Full costume) and here (Just the helmet and sword). So I’m just going to jump right in and tell you how I made and came up with the design for this helmet and sword.

This build was much like my previous build aside from the fact that I was using slightly different tools and techniques along with using some additions to the finishing process.

The Hemet – For the helmet I was going for something based on adventure time but something more real and practical than a felt hat you commonly see on people costumes of Finn. I was toying with the idea of getting an actual bear pelt but that was much more expensive so I went with something more creative and stylized and made a helmet.

As usual the first thing I did was to make a sketch of what I wanted it to look like. Generally, when I’m making something that is my own, I’m not too worried about making anything more detailed than a sketch. This is because I like to design a little while I’m building. It allows for me to have a faster workflow and to add or change things if it looks better. I think this is partly due to my lack of drawing skills but I definitely think it worked out for this helmet.

When coming up with the design the two major references I looked at were bears and medieval helmets. I wanted something that personified the bear aspect of Finn’s hat but something more practical for the warrior that Finn is. The other thing that I wanted to make sure is that I kept the the shape true to the cartoon, which was difficult because of the actual shape of a bear’s face.

Again if you haven’t checked out my last post I recommended Evil Ted Smith’s and Punished Props helmet building tutorials. Using this technique, I took my sketch, made a template on poster board  and then transferred it to my EVA foam. Then, I glued the pieces together with barge cement. It ended up looking like this.

Originally I had planed on making the helmet look some what like a bear skull that rested on the top of the helmet, but as I was building it I realized that the face portion would make a perfect visor. So, I ended up getting some large nuts, bolts and washers so that the helmet would actually function. Cutting two holes on either side of the helmet with my dremel, I connected the two parts with the bolts.

I then sanded all the seams and rough spots with 80, 320, then 400 grit sandpaper. I also used dap kwik seal to fill all the gaps. Something I found while making my vanguard armor is that kwik seal works nice as a filler, but, unfortunately, isn’t really sandable, and has a different texture and is more shiny after it’s painted over. Fortunately, if your planing on coating it with resin it won’t matter. For me this was the case.

From what I’ve found, there are a multitude of things people use to coat eva; Plasti-dip, Mod Podge, wood glue, and Epsilon are some of the most common. The problem with most of these is either they have a hard shell and crack (wood glue and epsilon) or they are flexible but don’t really create a very thick coat. After watching this video on YouTube looking for an alternative, I wondered if Super Glaze could be used as an under coat rather than a top coat. I tried it out on a test piece of foam and it worked. Furthermore, it is both a hard shell and is flexible. From what I have found this is ideal for EVA.

So, using this newly discovered resin, I coated the helmet with two coats of super glaze sanding in between layers to remove drip marks and imperfections. I then gave it a quick coat of primer.

Then a coat of black. A black undercoat helps provide the best results for a chrome coat.

Then, obviously, a coat of chrome.

At this point I used a technique to created a chipped paint look, shown by many of my favorite prop makers, demonstrated here. I didn’t have any masking fluid so I ended up using toothpaste. I applied it to the areas I wanted to looked damaged, then sprayed the entire helmet with a few coats of white, then removed the toothpaste to reveal the silver.

Finally, I gave it a couple of washing with various colors of acrylic paint for distressing and then sealed it with some clear coat.

I was really happy with how this helmet turned out, a few of the process I hadn’t really tried before, and that they all turned out better than I expected. The only thing I think I would change if I were to make this again, is that I would make the chin portion of the helmet come down a bit farther. Depending how it sits on my head it can look a little short. Other than that I’m pretty happy with the results.

The Sword – Unlike the helmet, the sword I wanted to be more like a replica then something of my own. I really like the design of Finn’s new sword, so I thought a replica would work very nicely. Unfortunately, because I was working out of my apartment I couldn’t make it out of wood like I wanted to. So I ended up using EVA foam again.

First, I looked at some references from the cartoon along with some research about how long actual short swords are supposed to be. I took these measurements, and cut out a few long rectangles of foam like this.

I, then, glued them together with Barge contact cement. I placed a wooden broom handle to fortify it in the center and act as a hilt, and then secured it in with wood glue.

I took an old plastic dish I found at a thrift store and cut it out to act as the gem. I then attached it with hot glue.

Next, I began sculpting out the shape of the blade with a knife and a sander.

The finishing process is virtually identical to the helmet so I’m not going to go over it. The only exception is for the gem which I masked off and coated in a chrome blue paint.

Though this sword turned out fairly well, I’m not entirely happy with it and I will probably be remaking it out of wood. The EVA was really restricting for me because while sculpting it I didn’t want to remove too much which ended up compromising the design. I also made a few mistakes like the tip of the sword should be rounded not pointed. Along with the fact that the sword doesn’t look very sharp on the edges.

Either way I had a lot of fun working on this because it was the first real prop or costume piece I made that was inspired by a cartoon. Adventure time is a great show and hopefully the fans can appreciate these props. Check out the final product here.

If your looking to make EVA foam armor I highly recommend looking at Bill Doran’s E-books, His YouTube and Evil Ted Smith’s YouTube as well. they are invaluable resources and helped me greatly.

Thanks for reading!